Poland’s retail sales growth slowed notably in May, after strong improvement in the previous month, figures from the Central Statistical Office showed on Thursday. The retail sales index rose 3.8 percent year-on-year in May, slower than April’s 8.4 percent growth. The increase came in well below economists’ expectation for 6.2 percent growth. In March, sales rose 3.1 percent. On a monthly basis, retail sales dropped 0.7 percent in May, reversing from a 2.3 percent increase in April. This was the first decline in three months.
Poland’s unemployment rate declined for the fourth straight month in May and came in line with economists’ expectations, according to the figures from the Central Statistical Office. The registered unemployment rate fell to 12.5 percent in May from 13.0 percent in April, as forecast by economists. In March, the figure was 13.5 percent. In the same month last year, the jobless rate was 13.6 percent. The number of unemployed fell to 1.98 million in May from 2.07 million in the previous month.
Wage growth in corporate sector accelerated in May to 4.8 percent year-over-year, while employment growth remained at 0.7 percent year-over-year.
Real growth of households? disposable income is at the highest level for many years and this is supporting a further recovery of consumption demand and, in longer horizon, probably also revival of price growth, according to the BZ WBK weekly report.
Core inflation excluding food and energy prices amounted to 0.8 percent year-over-year in May, thus remained at April?s level.
Sources: www.rttnews.com, www.bzwbk.pl
